11 Candy-Free Halloween Treats That Kids Will Actually Love

For parents of one of the 6-million children with food allergies, trick or treating is a downright stressful occasion. Their child either skips it altogether and misses out on the experience or ends up with a bag full of potentially-fatal candy. Where’s the treat in that? Even if their kids don’t have allergies, many parents just don’t want their kids to come home with 50-pounds of candy. I’m not saying we should abolish candy (not at all, I love stealing from my son’s stash!), but I do think that it’s super important to keep some alternatives on hand for the kids who want (or need) them.

Of course, if you’re going to give out candy-free Halloween treats, you want it to be as equally awesome as the chocolate bars that the neighbor across the street is handing out. Don’t be that weird person who hands out floss or dental exam certificates. Unless, of course, you LIKE cleaning TP off your front yard! Instead, give out one of these super cool candy-free Halloween treats that kids will actually love!

Really Cool Candy-Free Halloween Treats for Kids

Let’s start with my favorite candy-free Halloween treat: Big Bucket of Monsters or Zombies! Actually, it’s more like a big tube. I got both the zombies and the monsters to check out. Jake swooped in to snag a handful right away. Each “bucket” comes with 100 pieces, plenty for you to hand out to all the cute little beggars!

Both are available on Amazon for $17.95 and $19.95 respectively, with Prime shipping, so you’ll get them by Halloween. They’re also available on SCS Direct. Along with fun monsters and zombies, you’ll also find Army Men, Sea Creatures, Safari Animals and more, so there’s something for everyone!

10 More fun allergen-free Halloween Treat Ideas:

Glow sticks, wands or bracelets (not only cool, but they help make kids more visible while Trick or Treating, so it’s a double-win!)

Really cool temporary tats. Think along the lines of whatever is SUPER hot right now. Avengers, Descendants (turns out they’re not talking about the super cool punk rock bank), etc.

Character bouncy balls- this can get a bit more expensive than, say, a bulk shipment of plain old bouncy balls, but if you just have a few kids coming to your house, cool character bouncy balls like these Despicable Me balls are super nifty!

Two words: sticky hands. I don’t know why, but my son goes nuts for these things. They’re covered with my dogs’ fur in like 20 minutes, but he still insists we get them out of every bubble gum machine we pass. Plus they’re super cheap. You can get like 72 of them for about $6.50, which is way less than 72 pieces of the high-quality, “off the trading table” candy.

Anything that makes noise, from little plastic kazoos to whistles to those weird straws that you swing around that whistle in the wind.

Cute erasers (CUTE being the operative word, not those little nubby things you stick on the end of pencils, people. Those are basically the same thing as floss).

Halloween party favors, like spider rings, vampire fangs, etc.

Obviously, some of these things cost less in bulk than others, so consider your budget versus the number of kids in your neighborhood. My favorite is still the Bucket of Monsters, and not just because they sent me some to check out. They’re just plain neat and fun, plus you get a good amount for the money.

The TEAL PUMPKIN PROJECT and the Teal Pumpkin Image are trademarks of Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE).”

This post was inspired by the Teal Pumpkin Project, a national campaign that encourages treat-givers to offer candy-free options to trick-or-treaters. If you’re going to be handing out allergen-free alternatives, you can print out a Teal Pumpkin to hang on your door so parents know to bring their child by.

Can you think of any other fun candy-free Halloween treats that kids will love? Share in the comments!

This is quite a list of alternative treats to pass out! I passed out glow sticks last year, but there were many on here that I would not have even thought about. Thank you for putting this amazing list of ideas together!

Awesome ideas! I always loved getting the treats, that weren’t candy! I also loved the sticky hands, LOL! We have 5 pets, and they were filthy in minutes, but there is just nothing as fun as slapping a sticky hand onto the glass doors.

I’m definitely taking the no-candy route this year! We follow a very healthy lifestyle and I despise all the candy that my kids get for Halloween…they’re still young so I can usually convince them to swap it for a new toy 😉